


Office Hours

by glim



Series: white city [7]
Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 23:52:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd received two text messages from Arthur over the course of the evening, sent approximately two hours apart from each other. The first one, a reply to Merlin's question about how dinner with his father was going, had read: Interminable. With steak. And a great deal of wine. The second, unprompted, simply had told Merlin to be at Arthur's by nine-thirty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Office Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Chronologically follows _In Medias Res_.

Pausing on the steps outside of the humanities library, Merlin took a moment to gauge the spring evening. Behind him the door thudded to a close, heavy and wooden, exchanging the dull, papery quiet of the study carrels and the stacks for the scent of damp earth and new, green growing grass and leaves. A few students milled about on the lawn while dry, acrid cigarette smoke and wisps of earnest conversation about weekend plans drifted from around the corner of the worn stone staircase.

The day had been warm, maybe the warmest they'd had so far, but the sun had set while Merlin himself sat in the graduate reading room. Spring had come upon him quickly this year, the weeks passing in a rush of master's thesis anxiety until, suddenly, the days were too warm for a scarf and gloves. The nights, however, were still chilly and raw, and Merlin shivered against the breeze.

The reading room had been even colder, however, and Merlin had spent the last hour curled up in the chair at his study carrel, the frayed sleeves of his navy blue sweater pulled down to his fingertips. Hours in the air conditioned library usually meant he'd bring along a hoodie, but tonight he was headed to Arthur's afterward and Merlin wanted to be wearing this sweater. It was old and worn, one the many articles of clothing that tended to prompt Arthur to tell him he still dressed like a college student and it was no wonder people mistook him for a freshman. Merlin thought about retorting, sometimes, that Arthur couldn't have looked any better when he was writing his own master's thesis, but he'd seen pictures of Arthur from his years at Carlisle. He'd even seen the older photographs, the ones from when Arthur had been an undergraduate here at Villa Alba, and Arthur had always, always been strangely, wonderfully well-dressed.

Merlin's second favorite picture of Arthur, one that he planned on stealthily obtaining a copy of at some point, had been taken when Arthur was twenty years old. His hair was shorter, blonder, and he had the tired, relieved expression on his face that everyone seemed to have at the end of every semester. Tired, relieved, and happy, dressed in just a white tee shirt and jeans, with his hair rumpled up like he'd fallen asleep in the middle of the day. Merlin had never known that Arthur, and part of him really didn't want to, but part of him loved that captured memory and how he could still see glimpses of it in Arthur's sleepy-bleary Sunday morning face and in the exhausted relief he showed after finishing up one of his marathon grading sessions.

The blue sweater was a rumpled, tattered, comfortable snapshot of Merlin's own time in college, though he only had to reach back a few years to remember make-out sessions in the study lounge or hours spent waiting at the bus stop to go home for Thanksgiving wearing this sweater. He wanted Arthur's hands and scent on the thin material, so he could bury himself in the memory of touch and the warmth of faded, barely lingering aftershave and sweat when he wore it tomorrow morning. He wanted Arthur worn into his memories as well as his senses.

That thought gave Merlin another little shiver, of pleasure this time, as he slung his messenger bag over his shoulder and across his chest to begin his walk across campus. He could still, if he let his mind wander and let his tongue lick lightly over his lips, taste Arthur. The library had been freezing enough that he'd needed two cups of tea for both heat and caffeine purposes, but beyond the slightly bitter taste of strong, black tea there was the fainter, but deeper, taste of Arthur's skin, his arousal, the soft-slick taste of his cock against Merlin's tongue.

Merlin could've been imagining it, and from the look on the face of a couple students who walked past him on the way to his car, he shouldn't've been imagining it. But he couldn't help himself, not with the way it made arousal start to diffuse through him, way down deep inside where it felt like a small, flickering, yellow-white flame, keen enough to prickle against the edge of Merlin's senses and send an inexplicably good shiver through his limbs once more.

He'd sucked Arthur off in his office. Almost. He'd swallowed him down, mouth wet and hungry, and took him in until Arthur had given a gasping, choking sound. He'd done that, tongue and lips working Arthur's cock; he'd made Arthur go quiet with need and had him sweating through the fine, pressed material of his broadcloth shirt, his arse pressed back against the edge of his desk, trousers down to his ankles, white cotton boxers shoved down his legs.

God, Arthur had been so wrecked, the afternoon sun aslant through the window in his office, all those papers and folders spread out over his desk – work, grading, syllabi, and a stack of paperwork for the department faculty meeting he'd just returned from – and his office door locked lest anyone try and find him. So wrecked, he hadn't even able to get out a sentence when Merlin pulled away to lick a teasing line up his erection before tucking him back into his shorts and trousers, hard and damp and desperate.

Merlin licked the tip of his tongue over his lips again. And smiled, small and secret and just for himself.

His favorite picture of Arthur, the one he already had a copy of and kept shoved in a paperback copy of some excruciating novel by Hardy, which in turn he kept on the IKEA bookshelf in his apartment, was one taken just a few months back. The dean's office had held a lunchtime reception for junior faculty at the start of the semester, and the secretary had decided Arthur looked well-dressed enough that day to have his photograph taken for the department bulletin board. Thus, there was a picture of Arthur, dressed in charcoal pinstripe trousers, his shirt and tie coordinating shades of blue and grey, the sleeves rolled up, his suit jacket slung over the teacher's desk he leant against after the last of his students had left the classroom.

He looked… Professional. No. Professorial. _Yes_. Older than in the other photograph, obviously. Arthur was smiling in that picture enough to show the few fine lines at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth, and he'd grown comfortably into authority he'd earned with his position as professor.

And if only Merlin noticed how even the classroom light managed to catch the blue of his eyes and how the angle of the photograph did the strong line of his jaw, well, that was only Merlin's business. It was _his_ favorite picture, after all.

¤

"Ah, Merlin. There you are. I thought you'd forgotten. Or… Is everything all right?"

He'd received two text messages from Arthur over the course of the evening, sent approximately two hours apart from each other. The first one, a reply to Merlin's question about how dinner with his father was going, had read: _Interminable. With steak. And a great deal of wine_. The second, unprompted, simply had told Merlin to be at Arthur's by nine-thirty.

Now, according to Merlin's cell phone, it was nine-thirty seven. He'd let himself into Arthur's apartment, toed off his shoes, and left his bag next to the sofa before padding down to the extra bedroom that Arthur used as a study. Where he found Arthur, still in his shirt and necktie, a few papers spread out in front of him: a print out of an article from JSTOR, a couple word documents, a legal pad with the top page half-full of Arthur's tight, elaborate penmanship.

Christ. He even still had on his _shoes_, and the heavy watch he wore to work, but usually took off and left with his keys in the shallow green glass bowl on the table in the hallway.

Sock-footed and feeling deliciously vulnerable for it, Merlin curled his toes against the pile of the red and gold patterned rug and took a small step closer to Arthur's desk. The great, heavy wooden desk where Merlin knew Arthur did most of his own reading, research and writing. The edges had smoothed out with use and the desk lamp, the only one on in the room, cast a close, almost intimate, glow over the surface, a pool of yellow warmth that spilled over the desk, the chairs, and the closest bookshelf. Over Arthur, too, and his hair had that absurd, almost gold-blond color in this light, the fringe just long enough to touch the arch of his eyebrows when he let it get mussed enough to fall over his forehead.

He'd been reading and taking notes, then, drinking coffee when he ought to be thinking about getting rest, and running his hands through his hair when he wasn't thinking about anything. Merlin touched his fingertips to the edge of the desk and stroked the side of his thumb against the polished wood. Or, hopefully, Arthur had been thinking about Merlin, and about the way he'd nearly fucked himself into Merlin's mouth and down his throat, and how Merlin had pulled away, wanting Arthur to fuck him in this office, against this well-worn desk, surrounded by Arthur's old books, the ones he'd annotated three and four times over the course of his career.

"Sorry, yeah. I had to walk all the way across campus after I got out of the library." Merlin shuffled his feet, rubbed one against the back of his calf, and returned the expectant look Arthur gave him.

"That's fine. Go on. Have a seat." Arthur nodded toward the chair placed by his desk. "We should finish the discussion we started earlier today."

"Arthur –"

Arthur glanced up from where he searched through the papers, face drawn into a frown, and offered Merlin another expectant look, one firm enough that Merlin knew better than to offer his own in exchange.

"Um. Professor?" The expression on Arthur's face eased into approval and the tiny curl of warmth in the pit of Merlin's stomach started to unwind. "That was just a draft I gave you…"

"Hm. Yes, that was apparent. It was good, though. Why don't we look over it together?"

Warmth, and a fluttering feeling, that odd nervous feeling Merlin always got when he handed any of his work to a professor, combined with the catch in his chest he always felt when Arthur found some way of touching him that he liked best without Merlin having to ask. It made him want to curl his fingers or toes up around the desk or the carpet, as if doing that could help contain the feeling and keep his arousal tamped down to a tolerable degree. Otherwise, he'd be hard and wanting Arthur's mouth on his neck, Arthur's hands skimming down his sides to settle strong and firm at his hips, Arthur's body flush against his, his cock a hard hot press though their clothes against Merlin's.

"Merlin? Your _paper_?"

"I, oh. Sure. Could you – I had a question about the middle section?"

"Mm. Show me where. And, please, sit down already."

Merlin slid into the seat by Arthur's desk and moved in close while Arthur pulled the working copy of Merlin's Chaucer seminar paper out from the others on his desk. Arthur leaned in even nearer once he had the paper opened to the proper page; near enough that Merlin could see the fine, dark blond hair on his arms where he'd rolled up his sleeves, could smell the fading scent of his aftershave, skin-soft and spicy, already tinged with the sweat of arousal.

Not so near that they were touching, though, and Merlin had to stop himself from petting the tips of his fingers over the back of Arthur's hand. He made a move to do just that, but let his own hand stop, still and undecided, before he reached for his paper from Arthur.

"This section, and onto the next page or so." Merlin ran the tip of his index finger down the page to the center, then splayed his hand over the whole section. "Where I talk about Absolom and Nicholas? And, um, romance and fabliaux? Is that… did that sound like a good start?"

Merlin glanced up to watch Arthur watch him, his gaze settling on Merlin's fingers and how they traced over text, outlining the paragraph in question and underlining the passage Merlin had quoted along with it. Something small and bright flickered in Arthur's eyes before his gaze returned to the essay.

"Ah, yes. I think, yes, that is a good start, and I think you'll want to use those two characters, along with the nice writing you've already done on Alison, to talk about the ways gender and genre are working here. Have you looked at Karma Lochrie's work on the tale? Or maybe Elaine Tuttle Hanson, or Linda Lomperis?"

How Arthur could access the bibliography that lived in his head when they were sitting like this, bodies angled against each other in that touching-not-touching sort of way, appropriate for a paper conference only in that they were talking about a paper that Merlin had written. Inappropriate in that Merlin could feel the tickle of Arthur's breath against the side of his neck and could pick up the tiny catch in it when Merlin shifted in his seat, his leg bumping Arthur's and his fingers grazing Arthur's as they grazed the edge of the paper. The air in the room shifted, too, heating up with the bare brushes of skin against skin and clothing against clothing, Merlin's jeans and Arthur's dark trousers.

"I've looked at Karma Lochrie's work. And, I should add the others to the bibliography. Yeah. I'll do that.

"Good. Maybe we should look if the Riverside is helpful for bibliography. Could you – no, never mind. I'll get it."

Before Merlin could get up himself, Arthur stood to walk over to the tallest bookshelf in his study, the one that cataloged his whole academic career, from freshman calculus class in college to the extra edition of last year's MLA handbook that he'd received by accident. From one of the easiest to reach shelves, he pulled down his copy of the Riverside Chaucer, set the book down on his desk, and leaned over Merlin as he flipped to the notes on _The Miller's Tale_.

Maybe Arthur really was paying attention to what he'd been telling Merlin about his seminar paper, and maybe he really had read the essay draft with a careful eye, but all Merlin could notice as he bent over the heavy book was how Arthur's hair was damp with the sweat at the nape of his neck, and how the skin just above his shirt collar flushed when Merlin's fingers finally settled at his wrist.

Then Arthur shivered. The most subtle, held back tremble, the quietest hitch in his breath and the slightest, briefest hesitation in his movement as he turned the pages. His hand settled on the open book, and Merlin let his fingers slip around to stroke the inside of Arthur's wrist, his pulse a steady point of warmth and sensitive skin for Merlin to tease.

Except, apparently, Arthur had had enough teasing for one evening. He pulled his arm away only to settle it around Merlin, so his chest hovered against Merlin's back, his body a curve of warmth against Merlin.

"Here. You'll want too look here." Arthur's voice roughed up around the edges of his words, grew low and quiet, and when he turned to Merlin, instead of looking at Merlin, he just breathed against him. Hot and sigh-quiet, stirring the hair at Merlin's temple and tickling at the curve of his ear. "You don't want to leave anything unfinished, right in the middle of things."

That. Oh god. Merlin would have known that Arthur had stopped talking about Chaucer, the fabliau genre, or any other sort of research just from the way his voice got even lower, quieter, and how Arthur breathed his words against Merlin's ear with more warning than affection. Inside Merlin, arousal curled and uncurled, wrapping around his senses, tightening at the base of his stomach.

"Right. Yeah. I'll… revise. Redo what I started here. Be more thorough."

"Yes." Arthur's lips formed the word at the shell of Merlin's ear and stayed there, lingering and definitely not kissing him, not yet. Just exhaling, slow and soft through his nose, against Merlin's ear, tantalizing him with a touch that wasn't anything more than breath against skin.

It wasn't just that Arthur was close. It was that he was just close _enough_, the space between them almost great enough to be innocent, despite it being filled with the quiet gust of Merlin's breath, a sigh half-caught in his throat when he turned and felt the skin-heated material of Arthur's shirt against his face.

Broadcloth. Cotton. Expensive. Washed and pressed at the dry cleaners. Worn to teach and then to a faculty meeting and then when Merlin had gone down on him in his office, when Arthur went to have dinner with his father, and now, while he hovered right over Merlin, and there must be the scent of sweat-sex-arousal, skin-warmed cologne, all over that white cotton.

Merlin tilted his head, nestled his cheek against Arthur and breathed in the nearness of his body. It was a soft, quiet movement, barely a change in their positions against each other, enough to brush Merlin's nose against that fine, expensive cloth, to rest his cheek there a moment so short that the touch could've been quick and careless.

Arthur's breath stirred his hair again and Merlin closed his eyes and let the shivering go right through him. He'd started this. He'd got Arthur hard and needy at the office, and had asked Arthur to fuck him here against this desk in his flat, had asked and wanted and needed, and now he had to wait. And Merlin couldn't tell what had done him in – the way Arthur could speak to scholarly research and smooth his hands over the surface of his desk or the book, all the while knowing Merlin wanted those hands moving over his own body; or the way Arthur could get so close to him and, with the briefest, lightest touches, could transform what had been a tight, hot coil of arousal inside Merlin to a steady, constant unwinding through his body.

"I think we're done. Unless you have any more questions about the paper?" Arthur asked, voice gruff, and tapped the edge of the Riverside. Once, twice, skimmed the tip of his finger down the margin, flicked the page, settled his hand atop Merlin's on the desk.

"I…" I started this, Merlin thought again, and glanced up at Arthur. "No, I don't think so. Thanks, Professor."

Arthur gave a nod and shut the book before straightening up and away from Merlin. Suddenly chilled without a warm, wanting body so close to his, Merlin tugged the cuffs of his sleeves down over his hands.

He was already hard.

And Arthur… Arthur ran a hand through his hair, loosened his tie, and stacked the book atop the file folders and print-outs, and leaned against the edge of his desk. He smiled, the expectant half-smile that he saved for Merlin and the moments they had to themselves, his own very small and secret expression.

"Wait. Merlin –" Arthur's fingers wrapped around Merlin's wrist and drew him up out of his seat, close, closer, inexorably close. "Don't go."

From there, it was just a step, a shuffle forward into the curve of Arthur's arm and into the press of their mouths together. Arthur groaned, low and chest-deep, and his hands stroked up and down Merlin's sides, one slipping up beneath Merlin's sweater to rub through the thin material of his tee shirt.

"Don't go," he said again, gathered Merlin into his chest, fingered the hem of shirt and stroked one finger underneath to touch Merlin's skin.

Merlin kissed the corner of Arthur's mouth and nuzzled, momentarily tender with his affection, against the side of his neck, finally able to breath in deep the scent of his skin. He could, right here, in Arthur's study, with the books, papers, the warm circle of light from the desk lamp, sink himself into Arthur. Bury his hands in Arthur's hair, now a little too long and almost curling over the back his shirt collar, and keep his face pressed into his neck, or his shoulder, and rub himself off against the firm press of Arthur's thigh between his legs.

He could, because he knew that Arthur had already saved all his quiet, desk-lamp lit moments for the two of them. For all the days he watched Arthur teach, all the mornings he spent photocopying handouts and the afternoons grading papers for or with Arthur, and all the evenings he shut the door behind them and kissed Arthur, careful and hushed, touching him to quiet his words, then murmuring against him to silence his needy sounds, there were the nights like this they spent together.

And Merlin _knew_.

He'd seen the pictures of Arthur from college and grad school, the ones of Arthur with boyfriends and best friends; the pictures of Arthur and the man with whom he'd spent three years of his life, holiday pictures and family pictures, at conferences and on vacation, pictures where he looked incredibly happy and a handful where he looked miserable, sick or unhappy or exhausted.

Merlin knew he probably wouldn't be Arthur's first _anything_.

Shaping his palms around Arthur's shoulders, Merlin kissed his neck and nosed along the line of his jaw. Arthur hummed in response, one hand up beneath Merlin's shirt now to splay over Merlin's rib cage.

God. He loved that. He loved how Arthur's hand fit against the side of his body, the expanse of his palm and the stretch of his fingers. He loved how Arthur's voice got slower and deeper the more aroused he got; he loved the lines around Arthur's eyes and his favorite deep red silk necktie and how he'd met Arthur now, when he could see the present stretch into the future for the both of them together.

Merlin let his hands drift down Arthur's chest, smoothing wrinkles from his shirt, and reached up to loosen his tie just a little more. His fingers grazed the edge of Arthur's collar, the warm skin right against it flushed once more, and Merlin smiled at the groan he got from Arthur as he undid the top two buttons of his shirt.

"Turn around." His hips nudging against Merlin, Arthur pushed them both away from the desk. "No, wait," he added, leaned forward, mouthed down the column of Merlin's neck. "I just want to taste you here, first."

Merlin, his hands at Arthur's waist again, let himself be held hard and tight against Arthur, cock straining just as hard and tight against his jeans, desire no longer an undulating warmth beneath his skin but a pulse, steady, desperate, already unwinding through his limbs to the tips of his fingers and toes. He gasped at the brush of teeth against his skin and wished for winter back, for scarves and high necked sweaters, so Arthur could leave sharp red marks against his skin and Merlin could hide them (small and secret, their biting kisses just like their soft smiles) while he listened to Arthur lecture. And he'd scrawl notes on H.D. and Ezra Pound, prepare to lead next week's discussion group, and track Arthur's movement across papers and chalkboards and desktop surfaces, remembering the mark of teeth and possessive murmurs against his neck.

When Arthur finally had Merlin bent over the desk, jeans and boxers yanked down to his ankles, he touched one hand to Merlin's shoulder, let the other stroke his side, and bent his body over the curve of Merlin's to kiss the nape of his neck.

He smiled, the shape of his mouth already familiar against Merlin's skin, and skimmed his hands over the worn softness of Merlin's old navy blue sweater with reverence he'd never let show in their day to day conversation and casual touches. He stroked up under the hem again, fingertips tracing and tickling, then moving to outline the angle of Merlin's hips and the back of his thighs. Arthur moved in close once more, the weave his trousers a bit rough and the buckle of his belt a bit cool against Merlin's skin, and pulled a desk drawer open to search inside.

Merlin could only moan out an "Oh, _God_" at the idea of Arthur keeping condoms and lube with his stapler and post-it notes and the expensive ink pens he liked best for taking notes and handwriting article drafts. At the touch of one cool-slick finger slipping down the cleft of his arse, his body yearned up closer, and Arthur gave a deep, satisfied laugh and crooked his finger to brush the tip against Merlin's still tight hole.

"Have you been wanting this as long as I have?" Arthur rubbed the side of his finger up and down, a steady, teasing slip, and draped his body over Merlin's once again. "Did you spend your time working in the library thinking about how I'd fill you up?"

"God. Just. No—yes." A full body shiver went through Merlin at the sudden crook of Arthur's finger inside him and he scrabbled along the edge of the wooden desk for something to grab onto. "I was… research. Reading room. Study, oh god _Arthur_, carrel—"

"Hm? Research. I'm sure. Such a good student, spending the evening in the library." Against the back of Merlin's thigh, through shorts and trousers, through his rapidly dissipating front of self-control, Arthur pressed the swell of his erection. He rubbed against Merlin, then a quick jerk of his hips, and a hitching breath at the slide of another of his fingers inside Merlin. "Such… Such a good student, doing research while waiting to come back here so I can fuck you over my desk."

Arthur's fingers twisted inside Merlin, pushing in deep and then twisting even harder, sending the swell of arousal through Merlin all over again; a blossoming, gathering swell that started at the bottom of his stomach and started to reach up and out in an inexplicable, inimitable way inside him, another sort of twisting, warmth and desire, all his nerves alight and hypersensitive. Merlin pushed himself back against Arthur's fingers, clenching around them and hissing at the way Arthur teased, inching his fingers out so Merlin had to fuck himself back against them once more.

"Pushy." Arthur nuzzled a tiny kiss behind Merlin's ear and he kept two fingers inside Merlin, slippery and unsteady, as he fumbled his belt and trousers open.

The whimper Merlin let out when Arthur untwisted his fingers and left him empty would've been embarrassing if Merlin could manage to feel anything but raw need at that moment. His dick ached for some sort of contact – his own fingers, or Arthur's fingers, slick and clumsy and clever all at once, the firmness of Arthur's thigh against his erection. He took a small step forward, or, God, not even a step, a yearning of his body towards the edge of the desk to brush himself against the smooth wooden surface.

Arthur would kill him if he spilled himself, hot and eager, over the desk and the papers strewn across it. All over his own paper and Arthur's research. Merlin shuddered, biting back a groan that felt as if it rose up from the somewhere deep inside his chest, where he felt too full of swelling desire.

"There," Arthur soothed, his lips at Merlin's ear again and his knee coaxing Merlin to crook one leg and spread himself open for Arthur. He gave Merlin a moment to brace himself against the desk and gave himself one to brace a hand against Merlin's hip.

Then Merlin was filled, quickly and completely, and he really was too far gone to stop himself from groaning, hoarse with pleasure at how Arthur knew not to be gentle with him, to fuck inside him with one stroke, to let Merlin know how he, too, had been aching all evening for this.

He didn't come until he felt Arthur thrust up into him, felt it in his spine and against his ribcage, at the back of his knees and the back of his throat. Not until he felt Arthur's fingers dig into his hip and his forehead rest against his back. But when he did, messy hot and sudden over his own hand and over Arthur's hand, climax unwound everything that had been tight and coiled inside Merlin, and it came upon him like the rush of springtime days had come over him.

¤

Arthur left half their clothes in the study, the other half at the foot of his bed, and draped Merlin over his chest before their bodies cooled and long before he pulled the duvet up over the both of them.

"… paper conferences always this thorough?" Merlin let out a sleepy-fond yawn against Arthur's shoulder and nuzzled into the hair behind Arthur's ear.

Arthur's hand at Merlin's side and his lips at Merlin's forehead, at once affectionate and full of Arthur's own sort of subdued possession, rendered any reply completely unnecessary, but he mumbled "only yours" anyway.


End file.
